he January of 2008 has brought about a whole new season of strategic partnerships and alliances for the big names in the search engine industry. The Redmond giant alone has had a couple of tie-ups, see: Microsoft and EDGAR Buddy Up To Enhance Each Others Services and Microsoft, Mediacart And Shopping Carts In Grocery Marts.

The Wall Street Journal Digital Network has made the announcement about the agreement between Microsoft Corp and itself. The agreement entails a partnership in which Microsoft Corp. becomes the exclusive third-party provider of contextual and paid search advertising for its network of sites, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com and more.

With all these websites coming under the purview of the Microsoft network, it means there would be an additional 20 million unique visitors per month to the expanded network of Microsoft. This would enable advertisers to reach out to an increasingly deep and attractive audience in the financial services vertical. The process would begin in February when The Wall Street Journal Digital Network begins providing contextual advertising to Microsoft.

The mood of both the corporate entities is upbeat about the whole thing, "Relevant and targeted digital advertising is important to our business and to the quality of the experience that we deliver to our users," said Gordon McLeod, president of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. "Microsoft's state-of-the-art advertising platform will enable us to dramatically improve our revenues from this key sector, and we look forward to working together."

As far as Microsoft Corp is concerned, the move is significant because it hopes that the confluence would make Microsoft advertising network a more attractive destination for advertisers. Brian McAndrews, senior vice president, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions at Microsoft comments "it makes the extended Microsoft advertising network the premier destination for advertisers interested in reaching financially minded users, as it complements our offering in this vertical through MSN Money and other syndication partners… Second, this deal is a strong indicator that we're gaining significant traction with our advertising platform. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network is one of the largest financial services publishers in a very dynamic vertical segment, and we're delighted to add it to our portfolio."

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